“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project for ages 3-7 (and occasionally a few 2-year-old siblings). The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but I wanted a messy art club for my littles. In the program, I stress a lot about how process is more important than product. Since that’s the goal, I don’t show parents a “sample” completed picture and just explain what the kids are using that day to create. Particularly since we’re almost always painting or getting messy, the goal is for everyone to have a good time!

This was the April edition of Kids Art, which the kids used forks to make flowers! I love the different ways that they went about making their creations. I found out about fork painting from Blog Me Mom — thanks!

Once they were done with their paintings, I read these garden/flower themed books:

A Garden of Opposites by Nancy Davis
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
A Closer Look by Mary McCarthy

(I just now realized that we read “Planting a Rainbow” in March Kids Art, too. Whoops! No one said anything if they minded.)

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project for ages 3-7 (and occasionally a few 2-year-old siblings). The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but I wanted a messy art club for my littles. In the program, I stress a lot about how process is more important than product. Since that’s the goal, I don’t show parents a “sample” completed picture and just explain what the kids are using that day to create. Particularly since we’re almost always painting or getting messy, the goal is for everyone to have a good time!

For March, the kids colored coffee filters with markers and then sprayed them with water to make rainbows! I modified this a Pinterest pin, originally written at Meaningful Mama.

And the books that we shared while their creations dried:

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Raindrops: A Shower of Colors by Chieu Anh Urban
Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project for ages 3-7 (and occasionally a few 2-year-old siblings). The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but I wanted a messy art club for my littles. In the program, I stress a lot about how process is more important than product. Since that’s the goal, I don’t show parents a “sample” completed picture and just explain what the kids are using that day to create. Particularly since we’re almost always painting or getting messy, the goal is for everyone to have a good time!

Way back in February, I did Kids Art the day before Valentine’s Day and we worked on two different painting projects, both from Pinterest.

For the first half of paint time, the kids painted with toilet paper rolls that I had bent to create heart stamps. I got this idea from this pin, and the original post links back to Hands On As We Grow.

The kids really enjoyed this, and to keep it Valentine’s Day themed, I only brought out pink and red paint at this point. (Also, black washable markers for them to write their names. You can see that the markers sometimes became a part of the project, too.)

For the second project, I brought out way more colors and Q-tips for the kids to use as paint brushes. This was inspired by this pin, and was originally from Practical Paleo.

I did provide a heart template on their paper since I knew that getting them to freehand their own hearts might be problematic. I love how this turned into a lesson on color mixing!

While their paintings dried, we read some Valentine’s Day books:

A Kiss Like This by Mary Murphy
The Perfect Hug by Joanna Walsh & Judi Abbot
10 Valentine Friends by Janet Schulman

It was a wonderful day and the kids were thrilled to take their paintings home. I hope it ended up as Valentines or displayed on the fridge!

Back in September, my first fall session of Kids Art was all about balls!

First, we got our painting on by marble painting! Each kid has a turkey pan that we lined with paper on the bottom. They plunked marbles into paint and then dropped them into the pan. Then, they rolled the marble around by shaking the pan. It was great, NOISY, fun.

Their amazing art gallery!

After they were done with marble painting, we read “A Ball for Daisy” by Chris Raschka, “This is My Ball” by Amanda Hudson, and “Watch Me Throw the Ball” by Mo Willems.

And after our stories, I got the kids up and we did two giant ball paintings, using a wading pool. I cropped the photo for privacy reasons, but imagine delighted smiles and wide eyes, and lots of noise.

Fingerplay: “Way Up High in the Apple Tree”
Way up high in the apple tree
I saw two apples looking at me
I shook that tree as hard as I could
And down came the apples
And mmm, they were good!

Song: “Come to School” (Tune: Farmer in the Dell)
We like to come to school
We like to come to school
Our school is such a happy place
We like to come to school

Craft

This was one of my favorite crafts of all time! It was super cute, very easy to make, and it served a purpose! Some of my parents were planning on using this to store love notes for the first day! The craft and template came from Danielle’s Place.

How It Went

I did a special storytime in the morning, apart from the summer session, for the preschoolers that would be moving on to big-kid school this year. It was my hope that I’d be able to help alleviate some concerns through stories, let parents talk about which teachers their kids would have to find some ST friends that had the same class, and for me to say goodbye to them as my ST kids.

It was a great time for all. By the end of the storytime, I had all of the kids geared up and ready for kindergarten. I had picked books that talked about all the new and neat things they would see, so the kids were chanting “WOW FRIENDS, WOW TEACHER” and “I’m rocking in my school shoes” all the way out of the room.

At the end, I had giant hugs from a lot of kids that have been in storytime since I started way back in 2010. (Which isn’t *that* long ago, but it feels like a lifetime to them!) It was a wonderful send-off and I hope they started school with confidence!

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project. The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but our little kids were not getting much art — other than my storytime crafts. Thus, “Kids Art.”

The Plan

Books

Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep! Listen to the City by Robert Burleigh
Subway by Anastasia Suen
Wow! City! by Robert Neubecker

Craft

I found this craft originally on Pinterest. The original post came from Patty at Deep Space Sparkle and it was an amazing craft that went over so well with my parents.

How It Went

I had the kids start with finger-painting the swirls in the sky. This took the majority of the time, and once everyone was pretty much done, I had them sit down for our stories. I opted not to do any extension activities since I had a much older crowd of mostly six-year-olds. “Wow City” was the biggest hit, and we spent a lot of time looking at the pictures to find items that look like Chicago. When our stories were read, we moved back to the table and started gluing our scrap paper. Some of the kids had too much paint to dry this quickly, but no one minded getting more paint on their hands!

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project. The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but our little kids were not getting much art — other than my storytime crafts. Thus, “Kids Art.”

This summer, Kids Art is back after a long hiatus! This program is definitely an important one for my community and I’m pleased that we have the space to offer it again. This month, I themed it to space and we painted planets on paper plates.

The Plan

This was a very last minute idea. I had no idea what to do for my craft, because I try to incorporate painting without it being dreadfully messy. Anyway, I figured we could make some planets since it would be a very easy contained craft by limiting the art space to a paper plate.

How It Went

“Space Boy” was the favorite book, and each kid got to make three planets before it was time to call it quits. First, we painted and then we did the books to give their planets some time to dry before going home. Overall, it was a very successful program and we’ve had very positive feedback from parents via our Facebook page!

For the program, I started off by reading my very favorite Dr. Seuss book, which is the classic “Green Eggs and Ham.” Ideally, I would have like to have feed them green eggs and ham, but we’re only allowed pre-packaged food or food that we prepare in the library. The kids really enjoyed chanting the refrain along with me, and I still think it is one of the few Dr. Seuss books that work in a storytime setting.

After the book, the kids went to the table and began painting the hats of the Dr. Seuss craft that I had found at Brilliant Beginnings Preschool, via Pinterest.

The kids had a great time painting their hats. I used clothespins with sponges cut into small squares as our paintbrushes. This (mostly) cut down on the mess.

While we waited for our hats to dry before assembling, we met back up on the storytime rug to play two games: Build-a-Lorax flannelboard and One Fish Two Fish fishing. (I bought a set of One Fish Two Fish cut-outs at Michaels, laminated them, and attached magnets. We already have a fishing set, so this was a super simple insta-game that the kids went CRAZY for.)

And then, we returned to assemble our Cat in the Hats. The hats were almost completely dry and the moms around just blotted the paint that was still too wet. This was a fun way for the littlest kids to participate in our “Celebrate Seuss” week, and I had a lot of positive responses (especially to the craft) that ensures that I’ll likely do this program again someday!

This was a special evening storytime program that I did over the summer. Attendance was pretty good (15 kids), so I have plans for doing a once-a-month evening storytime when the weather turns nice again.

Anyways, there are SO MANY great bedtime books that I would almost never run out of material! This time, I started with some of the books we own in our in-house storytime collection for convenience.

Fingerplay: “Going to Bed”
This little child is going to bed (point to self)
Down on the pillow he lays his head (rest head on hands)
He wraps himself in a blanket tight (hug yourself)
And this is the way he sleeps all night (snore)
Credit: Best Kids Book Site

This was a craft kit that I got through Oriental Trading. I loved this kit because it was entirely peel-and-stick which made it a no hassle craft! (I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to do a craft at Evening Storytime, but since I found such a simple one, I went ahead and did it.)

How It Went

What I really liked about evening storytime (and why I’ve decided to do it once-a-month this summer) is that I got a whole different crowd of kids and parents. I was serving patrons that for whatever reason were not served by morning or afternoon storytime! Since we’ve tried evening programming in the school year (and it flops), I’ll give it another go this summer! As for the program itself, the kids were very quiet and attentive during storytime but they really let loose during craft and we had a great time. I was the only participant to actually show up in pajamas though!

I knew that most of the kids attending this program had likely read the book prior to signing up. At first I was going to combat that by using the pop-up version to add a little twist. But then, I discovered flannelboard templates online and the rest was history.

(And because I still adore this flannelboard, I went and took some better pictures of it!)

My favorite piece is the butterfly wing! I did a ton of painting to get it to look at close to the book’s illustrations as I could.

After the flannel (which was a HUGE hit; I had a lot of kids “reading” the story along with me), we sang a little song with our pretend butterfly hands.

Game: Caterpillar Race
Form two teams of three. The course should be about 20 feet long, marked with a start and finish line. To play this game you’ll need 4 balloons. Each team lines up single file. Each player sandwiches a balloon between herself and the person in front of her. Each team is a little caterpillar! First team to run around the cones and back while keeping the balloons between them wins. (And you can’t use your hands to get the balloons in place!)
Credit: PBS Kids Zoom

For my kids, I modified by allowing hands to help the balloons and pairing kids up instead of making teams of three. I had a lot of younger threes/fours at the program and knew that the game would be too difficult.

And then, I did two different crafts with the kids!

Butterfly/Caterpillar Craft:
Caterpillar:
• Glue pom-poms onto one side of clothes-pin. Twist 3 inch piece of pipe cleaner around top end to form antenna. Let dry.
Butterfly wings:
• Lay paper towel flat. Mix water and food coloring to make “paint.” Use paint brush to paint the paper towel. The more colors you use, the more colorful the butterfly. Allow to dry. When dry, fan fold the paper towel into approx. ½ inch sections.
Credit: DLTK Kids

I actually did the caterpillars ahead of time, using hot glue and making sure that it was nice and dry for the kids. And I SO did not want to mess with food coloring with preschoolers, so I wound up using watercolor paint. It worked just as well, with way less mess!

Bookmark Craft:
Use fingerpaint to make a caterpillar crawling across the bookmark. Add legs, eyes, and mouth with a black marker when dry. Hole-punch a hole at the top of the bookmark and tie a ribbon through it to finish it off.
Credit: Domesticali

I called each child up one at a time while they were watercolor painting and had them dip their fingers in fingerpaint to make the bookmark. Instead of taking each child to the sink after their turn — I used hand/face wipes from the store. Another way to simplify my life!

Then, while their butterflies and their bookmarks were drying, we played one more game!

Game: Butterfly Match-Up
Cut butterflies out of cardstock and then cut them in half. Hide them around the room and ask the children to help you match up the butterflies.
Credit: The Virtual Vine

Afterwards, each child got to keep the butterfly they matched up and took home both crafts. This program was a really big success as far as I’m concerned, and I had a lot of pleased parents leaving the programming room that day.